236 HISTORICAL TALES.

The result of this bold answer was that food was
provided, a truce declared, and Tissaphernes, a Per-
sian satrap, with a body of troops, undertook to
conduct the Greeks out of the country. Crossing
the Tigris, they marched for fifteen days up its east
side, until the Great Zab River, in the country of
Media, was reached. Here the treachery which Tis-
saphernes had all along intended was consummmated.
He invited Clearchus, the Greek leader, and the other
generals to a conference with him in his tent,—three
miles from their camp. They incautiously accepted,
and on arriving there were immediately seized, the
captains and soldiers who had accompanied them
cut down, and the generals sent in chains to the
king, who ordered them all to be put to death,

This loss of their leaders threw the Greeks into
despair. Ruin appeared inevitable. In the midst
of a hostile country, more than a thousand miles
from Grecian soil, surrounded by enemies, blocked up
by deep rivers and almost impassable mountains,
without guides, without provisions, without cavalry,
without generals to give orders, what were they to
do? A stupor of helplessness seized upon them.
Few came to the evening muster; few lighted fires
to cook their suppers; every man lay down to rest
where he was; yet fear, anguish, and yearning for
home drove sleep from every eye. The expectation
of the Persians that they would now surrender
seemed likely to be realized, for without a guiding
head and hand there seemed to many of the dis-
heartened host nothing else to do.

Yet they were not all in that mood. One among